The Stranger Diaries
a completely addictive murder mystery
-
-
4.0 • 63 Ratings
-
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
A TIMES CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR. THE RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK.
'Goose-bump spooky, smart, and haunting' LOUISE PENNY
A dark story has been brought to terrifying life. Can the ending be rewritten in time?
This is what the police know: English teacher Clare Cassidy's friend Ella has just been murdered. Clare and Ella had recently fallen out. Found beside the body was a line from The Stranger, a story by the Gothic writer Clare teaches, and the murder scene is identical to one of the deaths in the story.
This is what Clare knows: No one else was aware of her fight with Ella. Few others have even read The Stranger. Someone has wormed their way into her life and her work. They know her darkest secrets. And they don't mean well.
This is what the killer knows: Who will be next to die.
'Compelling, intelligent and increasingly mesmerising' PETER JAMES
'Utterly bewitching . . . a pitch-perfect modern Gothic' AJ FINN, author of THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the wake of a divorce, Clare Cassidy, the heroine of this gripping standalone from Mary Higgins Clark Award winner Griffiths (the Ruth Galloway mysteries), accepts a job teaching English at Talgarth High, whose West Sussex campus includes the home of Victorian writer R.M. Holland, best known for his chilling story "The Stranger." Five years later, Clare and her 15-year-old daughter, Georgia, have settled into local life, and Clare has started work on a Holland biography. Then colleagues begin dying in violent ways reminiscent of "The Stranger," and Clare discovers mysterious notes written in her personal diaries. Alternating among the voices of Clare, Georgia, and Det. Sgt. Harbinder Kaur, who investigates the killings, Griffiths weaves a tale replete with ghosts, the occult, forbidden desire, and murder. Excerpts from "The Stranger" build the eerie atmosphere, though the tale's denouement and the killer's identity may disappoint some readers. Still, aficionados of such gothic classics as Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, which the killer may have read, will find this a satisfying novel for a rainy night.
